MONEY WELL SPENT£300,000 of taxpayers' cash was used so
Tesco's can sell onions that don't make you cry.
The Supasweet onions being sold for 99p for two
were developed by reducing pyruvic acid in a
project co-funded by the horticultural industry.
Tory MP John Hayes said, "Given the amount
supermarkets make, using taxpayers' cash in this
way is very alarming."

BIG
BUCKSTesco is on course for a £2bn pre-tax
profit in 2004.

PARKING
PROBLEMWith the number of supermarkets to
choose from I find it amazing that Tesco's in
Mickleover seem to be doing its best to put
customers off shopping there, by introducing
strict parking regulations.

As a regular customer I was amazed to return to
my car at the weekend to find a parking ticket on
it, threatening me with a fine should I fail to
park in a suitable manner again. My crime was to
park slightly over the white line, which I was
forced to do by the car already parked in the
next space.

When I queried the ticket with staff nobody was
interested, even when I mentioned that I was now
worried about leaving the car in the future, in
case it was deemed to be
"inappropriately" parked, and would
consider using other supermarkets which,
hopefully, have more respect for regular
customers. Miss M Clarke

This includes pumping chicken breasts full of
water. In September 2004, the Daily Mail alleged
that Tesco's premium pork chops are supplemented
with water, despite costing £2 more than
conventional cutlets. The company claims the
additional cost is due to rearing the pigs
outside.

ILLEGAL
TIMBERIn June 2003, Friends of the Earth
revealed that Tesco has been selling garden
furniture made from illegally sourced Indonesian
timber.

It has been illegal to export Indonesian logs
since October 2001 when the Indonesian Government
introduced a log export ban in a desperate
attempt to control escalating levels of illegal
logging.

As a result of this exposure, Tesco has been
expelled from the '95+Group', an influential
ethical trading initiative run by the WWF.

The supermarket had refused to give assurances
that it would stop using illegally sourced
rainforest timber, although it admitted there had
been a failure of compliance.

According to the Independent on Sunday, City
sources suggest that Tesco could now be dropped
from ethical share investment schemes.

Tesco is to put a
new label on food to help people eat more healthily. The
stickers will tell shoppers how products rate on the
glycemic index. This runs from zero to 100 and rates food
in terms of how quickly it is digested and is converted
to energy in the form of glucose. The faster food is
digested the sooner people will be hungry again.
Generally, natural foods score low on the index while
processed foods score highly. For instance, cornflakes
rate highly on the index because they provide people with
a surge of energy but leave them hungry soon afterwards.

A bran cereal by comparison would have a much lower
rating because it releases energy slowly and blunts
appetite. Professor Jeya Henry of Oxford Brookes
University said the labels could help people eat more
healthily. He said, "It is predicated on good
science. Low glycemic food appears to all coincide with
the type of healthy foods people should consume."

He added, "I think it could revolutionise our way of
eating." The labels are designed to help people who
need to monitor their sugar intake, such as diabetics or
athletes. But it could also prove popular with those on
low-carb, high protein diets.

The lower the rating on the glycemic index, the lower the
number of carbohydrates. The move comes just days after
Tesco announced plans to use a traffic light system to
rate food in terms of their fat content. That followed a
damning report from the Commons health committee on
obesity which urged the supermarkets and the food
industry to do more to encourage people to eat more
healthily.

A shopper is boycotting a Tesco supermarket
over their unruly shopping trolleys. David Hudson from
Mickleover says the trolleys caused expensive damage to
his car an is angry that Tesco will not contribute to the
cost of repairs. A nearby garage said trolley damage is a
common problem for motorists who use the Mickleover
store, whose car park is built on a slope. After a
shopping trip Mr Hudson found a dent on the rear of the
car below the light. A trolley had apparently rolled out
of an overcrowded bay and struck his car.

While looking for quotes, several garages correctly
guessed the origins of the damage, saying it was a common
problem. Mr Hudson said, "I was led to believe they
would look after a valued customer but later they said
the liability was with the person who failed to secure
the trolley. I can see their point if it was left just
anywhere but someone had tried to put this trolley away
and because the bay was overflowing, it rolled off."
Jane Clark, from Burnaston Garage in Mickleover, said,
"In the past fortnight we have had three or four
incidents relating to trolley damage. And those are just
the people who came to us, so it's not just an isolated
incident. The damage ranged from small dents to a £400
scrape on a Jaguar."

In a statement Tesco said, "While we regret this
incident Tesco has a policy for dealing with such issues.
We have teams of trolley collectors patrolling our car
parks and most of our customers return their trolleys to
the designated bays where they are secure until
collected. However, occasionally a customer leaves their
trolley unsecured and damage such as this can be caused
to another customer's vehicle. While we appreciate this
customer's comments we believe we demonstrated due
diligence in that our trolley team was operating at the
store at the time and therefore we cannot accept
liability."

Tesco sparked
a price war by selling cut-price music and films without
VAT. Using a legal loophole, the store has set up a
distribution firm in Jersey and is selling CDs and DVDs
online for £8.99 including delivery. They sell for about
10% less, with DVDs costing from £11.89 on Tesco Jersey,
an offshoot of the supermarket's online site. Jersey has
no VAT on goods sold there. As long as each item is sent
separately and costs less than £18, Customs and Excise
cannot impose tax.

The normal online price of a CD is between £9.99 and
£11.53. Tesco does not pass on the whole 17.5% VAT
saving because of extra delivery costs. The store said,
"We're passing on as much cost saving as we can. It
is all very transparent and open. Tesco Jersey gives
customers more choice and we're confident it will be a
big hit with them. Many other online retailers already
run operations out of Jersey so we developed our site to
make sure Tesco shoppers don't lose out."

Other music retailers are now expected to cut their
prices. Tesco's method is completely legal and used by
firms such as Choices Video and Amazon UK. The Treasury
is the big loser. For every 100,000 CDs or DVDs shipped
out of Jersey it loses an average £175,000 in VAT.

In April
2004, Tesco began to introduce RFID (radio-frequency
identification) tagging on cases of nonfood items at its
distribution centres so that it can track them through to
stores. From September some suppliers will be required to
put tags on cases of products delivered to Tesco. The
company has not set a deadline for all suppliers to tag
their cases. RFID tags use tiny computer chips smaller
than grains of sand to track items. Each chip has a
unique identification number that can be picked up by a
remote reader device, allowing it to be recognised up to
30 feet away.

While the chip pushers claim RFID tagging is strictly
about tracking stock through the supply chain, in August
2003 shoppers in Cambridge protested against a trial
which illustrates just how invasive this technology could
be. Packs of Gillette razors, often a target for
shoplifting, had the chips on their packaging. When the
product was taken off the shelf, the chip tagged the
shopper around the store. What is more, it triggered a
camera which stored an image of the shopper on its
database.

Whilst RFID tags track products, RFID tags can be read
from a distance without the bearer being aware it has
happened. In tracking products, RFID tags enable the
tracking of people. RFID tags can still work long after
the product has been bought. If the tags become as
ubiquitous as the manufacturers would like, people could
be bristling with chips in clothes and possessions. And
that's where privacy campaigners start to worry. Because
then you could be telling anyone who has the right kind
of scanning device, from burglars to the government, what
you have bought, where from, how much it cost, and
anything else that might be added to an item's database
entry, such as who bought it.

Tesco
launched a "double the difference" price
guarantee earlier this year in a bid to prove it was
cheaper than Asda, after the Leeds-based rival said it
was 10% cheaper than everyone else. Tesco responded by
promising shoppers that it if they found exactly the same
item at a rival supermarket it would pay out twice the
difference, in the form of vouchers. Soon websites,
particularly the MoneySavingExpert.com forums, were full
of consumers informing fellow shoppers about which items
were cheaper in which store, spreading the news via
Facebook and Twitter.

One customer, shopping for MoneySavingExpert.com, found
that some alcohol, laundry products and pet food were
cheaper at Asda. He spent £126 at Tesco on a shop that
would have cost £81 at Asda, and claimed a £90 voucher.
One fan on the Manchester United website claimed to have
made £600. Last month the supermarket was forced to
limit the vouchers to £20 and now it has said it will no
longer pay double the difference. Instead it will merely
reimburse customers the difference with a voucher.

A spokesman said that the scheme had "given rise to
a cottage industry of savvy and determined people",
who though in a small minority, ruthlessly used the
scheme to make money. They added, "We commend their
ingenuity and determination, but that wasnt why we
set up Price Check. So to protect the scheme for the
majority of our customers, we are changing it so that we
give customers the difference, not double the
difference." A spokesman for Asda said,
"Clearly they found it hard to make a promise they
couldn't keep." (Source: Daily Telegraph, Apr/11)